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NVIDIA GeForce 930M

NVIDIA GeForce 930M

The NVIDIA GeForce 930M (sometimes also called Nvidia GeForce GT 930M) is a (lower) mid-range, DirectX 11-compatible graphics card for laptops unveiled in March 2015. It is based on the last years GeForce 840M. In addition to the "normal" 25 Watt 930M, there is also a low power variant with a TDP of 12 Watt and support for DDR3 and GDDR5. The DDR3 variant should be approximately 10% slower than the 25 Watt version. The performance of the GDDR5 version is still unknown. The shader count for these low power 930M are also unknown. As the LP version is clocked only at 457 MHz + Boost it may feature more shaders (or a high Boost).

Update: The N16S-LP variant (5-12 Watt TDP, Low Power version?) will be available with GDDR5 starting in the first quarter of 2016.

Architecture

Compared to Kepler, Maxwell has been optimized in several details to increase power efficiency. Smaller Streaming Multiprocessors (SMM) with only 128 ALUs (Kepler: 192) and an optimized scheduler should lead to better utilization of the shaders. Nvidia promises that a Maxwell SMM with 128 ALUs can offer 90 percent of the performance of a Kepler SMX with 192 ALUs. The 930M should feature the full GM108 with 3 SMMs (384 shader cores, 24 TMUs, and 8 ROPs due to the 64-bit interface). 

Another optimization is the massively enlarged L2 cache. The larger size can process some of the memory traffic to allow for a relatively narrow memory interface without significantly reducing performance.

Similar to GM107, the GM108 supports DirectX 12 with Feature Level 11_0 only.

Performance

The performance should be a bit below an average GeForce 840M due to the slower core clock. This means that demanding games like Evolve are only playable in lowest settings. Less demanding games like F1 2014 or Fifa 15 on the other hand should run in highest settings. See gaming benchmarks below for more details.

Features

GM108 integrates the sixth generation of the PureVideo HD video engine (VP6), offering a better decoding performance for H.264 and MPEG-2 videos. Of course, VP6 supports all features of previous generations (4K support, PIP, video encoding via NVENC API). Unfortunately, HDMI 2.0 is still not supported.

Power Consumption

The power consumption of the GeForce 930M should be about 33 Watts or less. Therefore, the 930M is best suited for laptops 13 inches in size or larger. The 900M series also supports Optimus to automatically switch between an integrated graphics card and the Nvidia GPU.

ManufacturerNVIDIA
GeForce 900M Series
GeForce 945M 512 @ 928 - 1045 (Boost) MHz128 Bit @ 2000 MHz
Maxwell GPU (940M, GDDR5) 384 @ 954 - 993 (Boost) MHz64 Bit @ 5012 MHz
GeForce 940MX 384 @ 1122 - 1242 (Boost) MHz64 Bit
GeForce 940M 384 @ 1072 - 1176 (Boost) MHz64 Bit @ 2000 MHz
GeForce 930MX 384 @ 952 - 1020 (Boost) MHz64 Bit @ 2000 MHz
GeForce 930M 384 @ 928 - 941 (Boost) MHz64 Bit @ 1800 MHz
GeForce 920MX 256 @ 965 - 993 (Boost) MHz64 Bit @ 1800 MHz
GeForce 920M 384 @ 954 MHz64 Bit @ 1800 MHz
GeForce 910M 384 @ 641 MHz64 Bit @ 2000 MHz
CodenameN16S-GM-B/S, N16S-LP
ArchitectureMaxwell
Pipelines384 - unified
Core Speed *928 - 941 (Boost) MHz
Memory Speed *1800 MHz
Memory Bus Width64 Bit
Memory TypeDDR3
Max. Amount of Memory2048 MB
Shared Memoryno
DirectXDirectX 12 (FL 11_0), Shader 5.0
Power Consumption12 / 25 Watt
technology28 nm
FeaturesGPU Boost 2.0, Optimus, PhysX, CUDA, GeForce Experience
Date of Announcement12.03.2015
* The specified clock rates are only guidelines for the manufacturer and can be altered by them.

Benchmarks

GFXBench 3.0 - Manhattan Offscreen OGL off screen
0%
100%
min: 60.5     avg: 60.5 (11%)     median: 60.5 (11%)     max: 60.5 fps
+ 1 benchmarks and specifications   + Show comparison chart
GFXBench 3.0 - Manhattan Onscreen OGL on screen
0%
100%
min: 59.2     avg: 59.2 (26%)     median: 59.2 (26%)     max: 59.2 fps
+ 1 benchmarks and specifications   + Show comparison chart
Cinebench R15
Ref. Match 64Bit +
OpenGL 64Bit +
GFXBench (DX / GLBenchmark) 2.7
T-Rex HD Offscreen C24Z16 1920x1080 +
T-Rex HD Onscreen C24Z16 +
3DMark - Fire Strike Graphics 1920x1080
0%
100%
min: 1435     avg: 1469.7 (4%)     median: 1460.5 (4%)     max: 1527 Points
+ 6 benchmarks and specifications   + Show comparison chart
3DMark - Fire Strike Score 1920x1080
0%
100%
min: 1267     avg: 1299.8 (6%)     median: 1290.5 (6%)     max: 1369 Points
+ 6 benchmarks and specifications   + Show comparison chart
3DMark - Cloud Gate Standard Graphics 1280x720
0%
100%
min: 8148     avg: 8373.3 (5%)     median: 8309 (5%)     max: 8684 Points
+ 6 benchmarks and specifications   + Show comparison chart
3DMark - Cloud Gate Standard Score 1280x720
0%
100%
min: 5685     avg: 6270.8 (13%)     median: 6071 (12%)     max: 7808 Points
+ 6 benchmarks and specifications   + Show comparison chart
3DMark - Ice Storm Standard Graphics 1280x720
0%
100%
min: 40616     avg: 59247.5 (8%)     median: 56647 (8%)     max: 80544 Points
+ 6 benchmarks and specifications   + Show comparison chart
ComputeMark v2.1 - Normal, Score 1024x600
0%
100%
min: 1454     avg: 1454 (7%)     median: 1454 (7%)     max: 1454 Points
+ 1 benchmarks and specifications   + Show comparison chart
LuxMark v2.0 64Bit - Room GPUs-only
0%
100%
min: 372     avg: 372 (7%)     median: 372 (7%)     max: 372 Samples/s
+ 1 benchmarks and specifications   + Show comparison chart
LuxMark v2.0 64Bit - Sala GPUs-only
0%
100%
min: 694     avg: 694 (7%)     median: 694 (7%)     max: 694 Samples/s
+ 1 benchmarks and specifications   + Show comparison chart
3DMark 11 - Performance GPU 1280x720
0%
100%
min: 2057     avg: 2144.7 (4%)     median: 2153 (4%)     max: 2271 points
+ 7 benchmarks and specifications   - Hide comparison chart
3DMark 11 - Performance 1280x720
0%
100%
min: 2131     avg: 2250.9 (8%)     median: 2247 (8%)     max: 2456 points
+ 7 benchmarks and specifications   + Show comparison chart
3DMark Vantage
P GPU no PhysX 1280x1024 +
P Result 1280x1024 +
3DMark 06 Standard 1280x1024 +
Unigine Heaven 2.1 - high, Tesselation (normal), DirectX11 1280x1024
0%
100%
min: 27.3     avg: 27.3 (12%)     median: 27.3 (12%)     max: 27.3 fps
+ 1 benchmarks and specifications   + Show comparison chart
SPECviewperf 11
Siemens NX 1920x1080 +
Tcvis 1920x1080 +
SolidWorks 1920x1080 +
Pro/ENGINEER 1920x1080 +
Maya 1920x1080 +
Lightwave 1920x1080 +
Ensight 1920x1080 +
Catia 1920x1080 +
Cinebench R11.5 OpenGL 64Bit +
Cinebench R10 Shading 32Bit +
- Range of benchmark values for this graphics card
- Average benchmark values for this graphics card

Game Benchmarks

The following benchmarks stem from our benchmarks of review laptops. The performance depends on the used graphics memory, clock rate, processor, system settings, drivers, and operating systems. So the results don't have to be representative for all laptops with this GPU. For detailled information on the benchmark results, click on the fps number.

XCOM 2

XCOM 2

2016
low 1280x720
26  fps    + Compare
med. 1920x1080
9.6  fps    + Compare
high 1920x1080
6.2  fps    + Compare
ultra 1920x1080
3.1  fps    + Compare
» The benchmarks indicate that the game is not playable in the tested settings.
Rise of the Tomb Raider
low 1024x768
25  fps    + Compare
med. 1366x768
16.4  fps    + Compare
high 1920x1080
9.6  fps    + Compare
ultra 1920x1080
7.7  fps    + Compare
» The benchmarks indicate that the game is not playable in the tested settings.
Rainbow Six Siege
low 1024x768
62  fps    + Compare
med. 1366x768
39  fps    + Compare
high 1920x1080
19.8  fps    + Compare
ultra 1920x1080
12.7  fps    + Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings med..
Just Cause 3
low 1024x768
34.3  fps    + Compare
med. 1366x768
28  fps    + Compare
high 1920x1080
13.9  fps    + Compare
ultra 1920x1080
12.6  fps    + Compare
» The benchmarks indicate that the game is not playable in the tested settings.
Star Wars Battlefront
low 1024x768
46.2  fps    + Compare
med. 1366x768
28.5  fps    + Compare
high 1920x1080
12.8  fps    + Compare
ultra 1920x1080
11.2  fps    + Compare
» With all tested laptops playable in detail settings low.
Assassin's Creed Syndicate
low 1024x768
21.8  fps    + Compare